SI:AM | Five Things to Watch in Week 1 of the NFL Season

Including the best feel-good story of the year.

Thursday’s NFL opener will be a Ravens-Chiefs AFC title game rematch. / Tommy Gilligan-Imagn Images

Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. I think the NFL picked a perfect game to open the season with tonight. I’m really excited for the Chiefs-Ravens conference title rematch.

In today’s SI:AM:

🏈 NFL Week 1 picks
📺 The 10 best games to watch
🐅 Trouble for Memphis hoops

The road to the Super Bowl starts here

If you, like me, didn’t watch a single second of the NFL preseason, then this is the day you’ve been waiting for since February. The NFL is finally back in action with games that count for real. Here are a few things that I’ll be keeping an eye on in Week 1.

The Chiefs’ new-look receiving corps

Sure, the Kansas City Chiefs won the Super Bowl last season, but they still had their flaws. While previous Chiefs teams rode high-powered offenses to victory, last year’s squad was propelled by an elite defense that made up for a surprisingly mediocre offense. Kansas City ranked 15th in points scored but second in points allowed. The primary issue offensively was a lack of quality targets for Patrick Mahomes to throw to, and the Chiefs made improving the receiving corps a priority in the offseason.

Kansas City spent its first-round draft pick on a receiver, Texas’s Xavier Worthy, and also signed Marquise “Hollywood” Brown to a one-year, $7 million contract. They will join last year’s breakout rookie, Rashee Rice, as the starting wideouts in the Chiefs’ base 11 personnel. Brown will miss Thursday night’s opener against the Baltimore Ravens after injuring his shoulder in the team’s first preseason game, but the opener will still be an opportunity to see Worthy in his first real NFL action. The Chiefs also brought back JuJu Smith-Schuster, their top receiver in 2022, who spent last year with the New England Patriots but was cut by the team late in training camp.

It’ll be interesting to see how much Smith-Schuster has left in the tank (getting cut by a team that won four games last season isn’t a ringing endorsement of his abilities) and how long Brown is sidelined with that shoulder injury, but the Chiefs’ receivers have to be better than last year. Rice was the only Kansas City wideout who had more than 27 receptions last season. Backup tight end Noah Gray was fourth on the team in catches. Surely this year will be better. And with a defense that looks just as formidable as last season—especially after re-signing star defensive tackle Chris Jones—the Chiefs should be able to contend for an unprecedented Super Bowl three-peat.

Damar Hamlin gets the start

The best feel-good story of Week 1 isn’t even a competition. When the Buffalo Bills open their season at home against the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday afternoon, Damar Hamlin will get the start at free safety. It’ll be Hamlin’s first significant game action since he went into cardiac arrest on the field during a game against the Cincinnati Bengals in Week 17 of the 2022 season.

Hamlin played in five games last season, primarily on special teams. He was only on the field for 17 defensive snaps. He was, however, Buffalo’s starting free safety in 2022 before the cardiac arrest. Now, two years later, he will reclaim that starting spot.

“It’s one thing to come back off of an ACL or a broken bone. It’s another thing to come back off of what he came back off of,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “Let alone just to decide to play football, contact football in full pads at the NFL level. I don’t think I need to say anything more. It’s incredible.

“I think God’s hands have been on Damar and his family and will continue to be. We’re just extremely proud and full of gratitude to watch him go through what he’s went through and where he is now.”

Rookie quarterbacks debut

One of the biggest storylines in any NFL season is the play of rookie quarterbacks, and we’ll have an opportunity to see three of them in action in Week 1: Caleb Williams of the Chicago Bears (the No. 1 pick in the draft), Jayden Daniels of the Washington Commanders (No. 2) and Bo Nix of the Denver Broncos (No. 12). We’ve seen plenty of rookie quarterbacks start their teams’ season openers in recent years, so it may feel routine. But make no mistake, having this many rookies under center in Week 1 is fairly unusual. This is only the fourth time since the NFL-AFL merger in 1970 that at least three rookie quarterbacks will start in Week 1. Bryce Young, C.J. Stroud and Anthony Richardson did it last year, Trevor Lawrence, Zach Wilson and Mac Jones did it in 2021 and five rookies started in ’12.

Three more rookies will have to wait to make their debuts. New England Patriots pick Drake Maye might not have to wait long. The training camp quarterback battle between him and veteran Jacoby Brissett was neck-and-neck, with coach Jerod Mayo giving the nod to Brissett for now. For J.J. McCarthy of the Minnesota Vikings, the wait will be a long one. He was placed on injured reserve after undergoing knee surgery and won’t be back on the field until next year. The biggest question mark is how long Atlanta Falcons rookie Michael Penix Jr. will have to wait before he gets on the field. The Falcons drafted him with the No. 8 pick just a month after signing Kirk Cousins to a four-year, $180 million contract. Penix will surely see some playing time this season, but he’ll have to sit behind Cousins for a while before he takes over as the full-time starter.

Old quarterbacks debut (sorta)

Speaking of Cousins, he’s one of a handful of veteran QBs who will be debuting with a new team in Week 1. Russell Wilson was named the starting quarterback by Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin after a disastrous season last year in Denver. And we might as well consider Aaron Rodgers’s second start for the New York Jets a debut, given how abbreviated his first appearance was.

While there’s reason to question the Falcons’ team-building strategy—signing Cousins to a long-term deal and then immediately selecting a quarterback with a top-10 pick—there’s no doubt that the team’s offense should be significantly improved with Cousins under center. Atlanta ranked 26th in scoring last season with Desmond Ridder and Taylor Heinicke running the show. But the Falcons have plenty of talented position players—including the two-headed running attack of Bijan Robinson and Tyler Allgeier, receiver Drake London and tight end Kyle Pitts—so an improved quarterback could unlock the offense.

The same can be said for Rodgers and the Jets. New York sputtered on offense after Rodgers went down, finishing 29th in scoring while draft bust Zach Wilson started the majority of the games at quarterback. But with promising young running back Breece Hall and receiver Garrett Wilson, the 2022 Offensive Rookie of the Year, Rodgers should get much more out of the Jets’ offense than Wilson did. That, paired with New York’s already excellent defense, should be a recipe for success.

Wilson’s situation is the most interesting of the three. He’s trying to salvage his career with the Steelers after a difficult run in Denver. His first season with the Broncos was a total disaster, but you can place at least some of the blame at the feet of failed coach Nathaniel Hackett. He was somewhat improved last year, but he still posted a career worst 10.3 yards per completion. And he’ll be entering a potentially tense situation in Pittsburgh with former first-round pick Justin Fields waiting in the wings.

ESPN/Disney’s ongoing dispute with DirecTV

If you’re a DirecTV customer and you want to watch every game this weekend, you may not be able to. (Surely I’m not breaking that news to you.) DirecTV users lost access to all Disney-owned stations (ESPN and ABC, most notably for sports fans) on Sunday, moments before kickoff of the LSU vs. USC college football game, as the two sides bicker over a new carriage agreement. The negotiations between Disney and DirecTV have been marked by plenty of finger-pointing, with each side blaming the other for the loss of service.

“DirecTV chose to deny millions of subscribers access to our content,” ESPN said in a statement, while DirecTV accused Disney of “taking an anti-consumer approach, demanding that customers from DIRECTV and other TV distributors be forced to pay for channels they don’t watch.”

If this sounds familiar, it’s because the same thing happened on the eve of last NFL season, with Charter Communications customers losing access to Disney-owned channels as part of a carriage dispute. That time, the situation was resolved just before the first Monday Night Football game of the season. We’ll see if the same thing happens this time. Otherwise, a lot of people will miss the Jets-49ers game on Monday night.

Jordan Love and Green Bay will face Philadelphia in Brazil on Friday. / Scott Galvin-Imagn Images

The best of Sports Illustrated

• Here are our NFL team’s picks for every game this weekend.

• Matt Verderame ranked the 10 best games in Week 1.

• The Memphis men’s basketball team is facing allegations of widespread NCAA violations, Pat Forde reports.

• Scott Van Pelt was the guest on the latest episode of Jimmy Traina’s SI Media podcast.

• Traina also has more info on the Disney-DirecTV dispute.

• Michael Rosenberg wrote about Rory McIlroy’s role in the stalled negotiations between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf.

• With the classic Backyard Baseball video game set to return, Will Laws picked one player from each MLB team who should be featured in the revived game.

The top five…

… things I saw last night: 

5. Shota Imanaga’s seven hitless innings against the Pirates. Relievers Nate Pearson and Porter Hodge finished off the combined no-hitter. Imanaga didn’t realize he had a no-hitter going until manager Craig Counsell took him out of the game. 
4. Olympic gymnast Hezly Rivera’s acrobatic first pitch. 
3. Wyatt Langford’s game-ending catch at the wall. 
2. Fernando Tatis Jr.’s walk-off single in his second game back from injury.
1. Ludacris’s first pitch at the Braves game with the giant arms from the “Get Back” music video.